Parkhurst Boys on board ‘The Fairlie’ 1852

Thomas Nevin’s father, John Nevin, served in the First of Foot in the West Indies, Royal Scots, and at the Canadian Rebellions 1837-8, before embarking on the voyage to Tasmania in 1852. He worked as a pensioner guard on board the convict transport the Fairlie for the passage of his English-born wife Mary and their four Irish-born children, all under 12 years of age:

Thomas James Nevin: (1842-1923) died at age 80
Mary Ann Nevin: (1844-1878) died at age 34
Rebecca Jane Nevin (1847-1865) died at age 18
William John Nevin (1852-1891) died at age 39

The Ratio of Convicts to Free Settlers in Tasmania 1818-1857Click on image for large view

On their arrival, 10 year old Thomas Nevin joined the small population of free settlers numbering 44,340 in the December 1852 Census. The convict population numbered 19,105 or 30% of the total census for that year. But by 1857, only five years later, with the cessation of transportation to Van Diemen’s Land in 1853, the convict population dwindled to just 3,008 or 3.7% of the island’s population. The numbers recorded for the Aboriginal population – estimates of 7000 in 1818 to 15 in 1857 (presented here “without bias”) – speak clearly of genocide.

Such exposure from an early age to convicts made Thomas Nevin the most suitable candidate of all Hobart professional photographers to undertake contractual commissions to document habitual and repeat offenders, some of whom had been transported convicts sent back to the Port Arthur prison after a further sentence in the Supreme Court, and then back againto the Hobart Gaol in 1873. Nevin began the systematic documentation of prisoner ID photography in 1872, working at the Port Arthur prison on the Tasman Peninsula (1873-4); in the city courts and Supreme Court next to the Hobart Gaol with the assistance of his younger brother Constable John Nevin (1872-1888); at the Municipal Police Office Hobart Town Hall where he was office and hall keeper for the City Corporation (1875-1880); and in later years as bailiff’s assistant to detectives serving warrants with known offenders’ photographs attached (to ca. 1886). Over the decade and longer, the Nevin brothers photographed more than 3000 (three thousand) prisoners, but most of their photographs were lost, destroyed or sold at auction (one notable auction was in Hobart in the late 1890s). Only 300 or so (three hundred plus) prisoner photographs survive, selected by archivists or Beattie in the 1900s on the basis of the prisoner’s notoriety (and the quality of Nevin’s photography, which Beattie admired).

See this complete list of convicts arriving on the Fairlie 1852, compiled by the State Library of Queensland from British Home Office (HO) records which are available on microfilm as part of the Australian Joint Copying Project,online here at source.

Thomas Nevin later photographed some of these transportees – both those who were Parkhurst boys and those from the adult male prisoner population on board the Fairlie 1852 if they offended or re-offended and were sentenced for terms of 12 months or longer at the Supreme Court and incarcerated at the Hobart Gaol. When the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery held an exhibition in 1977 of 70 or so of Nevin’s prisoner vignettes, the curator’s press release noted that several adults photographed in the 1870s had been Parkhurst boys. George Nutt aka White was transported as a Parkhurst boy and Michael Murphy as an adult on the Fairlie 1852, both photographed by Nevin at Supreme Court sittings in Hobart. Neither was photographed Port Arthur, nor were the rest of these men whose photographs have survived. The archivist or collector who wrote the prisoner’s name and ship, plus the date “1874” and “Taken at Port Arthur” on the verso in the early 1900s did so with the commercial imperative and an eye to attracting the tourist to Port Arthur, promoted then as now as Tasmania’s premier tourist attraction.

From the QVMAG Collections
Nutt: 1985: P70
Murphy: 1985: P:120

The police records for these men and many more who arrived on the Fairlie 1852 are now online at the Archives Office of Tasmania, called Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police..The ship’s records of prisoners are also online – see this digitised record Item: CON33-1-107 for the original convicts record book of the Fairlie 1852, with this information about George Nutt:

Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923)

Professional photographer Thomas James Nevin snr (1842-1923) produced large numbers of stereographs and cartes-de-visite within his commercial practice, and prisoner identification photographs on government contract. His career spanned nearly three decades, from the early 1860s to the late 1880s. He was one of the first photographers to work with the police in Australia, along with Charles Nettleton (Victoria) and Frazer Crawford (South Australia). His Tasmanian prisoner mugshots are among the earliest to survive in public collections, viz. the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; the Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office, Hobart; the Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasman Peninsula; the National Library of Australia, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney. Thomas J. Nevin's stereographs and portraits are held in public and private collections in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland.

In his own words …

“I hope that you have not got it in your mind that I am implicated with the ghost“.The Mercury, 4 December 1880

“Defendant said that he was the father of a large number of children, and did not know which one was referred to. (Laughter.)”The Mercury, 11 August 1886

“Mr. Thos Nevin was under the impression that the police should be under stricter supervision.”The Mercury, 19 July 1888.

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Disclaimer

We have not voluntarily contributed to any publication which supports the misattribution of Nevin's prisoner/convict photographs (300+ extant) to the non-photographer A.H. Boyd, nor do we condone any attempts by public institutions or private individuals to co-opt the work on these Nevin weblogs and associated sites to apply the misattribution.

Old Chinese saying: "When you drink the water, remember who dug the well".

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